Senior National Championship | PV Sindhu, Saina Nehwal to take on each other in women's singles finals

02/16/2019

PV Sindhu and Saina Nehwal won their respective semi-finals in contrasting fashion to set up a mouth-watering women's singles finals clash at the 83rd Senior National Championship on Saturday. Two-time former champion Sourabh Verma has also sealed his spot in the men's singles final.

In what is the repeat of the last edition's title clash, the two stalwarts of Indian badminton will look to outdo each other and write another chapter in their on-field enmity. While Sindhu overcame a challenge from Assam's promising 19-year-old Ashmita Chaliha 21-10, 22-20 in the first semifinal, Saina got the better of qualifier Vaishnavi Bhale, who was part of India's Uber Cup squad in 2018, 21-15, 21-14, to reserve her finals berth.

Although Saina had the last laugh against Sindhu in the last two encounters - at the Nagpur Nationals in 2017 and the Gold Coast Commonwealth Games gold-medal match last year - she can't take the game for granted. Sindhu, however, stated that she would take it just like another game.

"It will be just another match and I don't think it will help me for All England, I will just look to focus and give my best," Sindhu said about the final in an interaction to PTI.

Three-time former champion Saina hardly broke any sweat to get the better of former India No. 1 Neha Pandit of Mumbai beating her by 21-10, 21-10 in a lop-sided quarter-final contest.

Former World No. 30 Verma, who had clinched Super 100 titles at Russia Open and Dutch Open last year also eked out a 21-14, 21-17 win against Maharashtra’s Kaushal Dharmamer to set-up the final date with Lakshya Sen, who proved too good for P Kashyap in the semi-finals and secured a 21-15, 21-16 victory.

In the other semi-final matches of the day, Rohan Kapoor and Kuhoo Garg lived up to their reputation as the top seeds in mixed doubles as the World No. 46 pair needed only 32 minutes to dispatch Vighnesh Devlekar and Harika V 21-15, 21-16 to enter the final. They will take on the unseeded combination of Manu Attri and Maneesha K, who continued their rampage with a fine 21-18, 21-17 victory over Shlok Ramchandran and Mithula UK.

In women's doubles, top seeds Meghana Jakkampudi and Poorvisha S Ram continued their quest for the title with a strong 21-13, 21-16 win over Kuhoo Garg and Anoushka Parikh. They will take on the unseeded Shikha Gautam and Ashwini Bhat K in the final after the latter edged Aparna Balan and Sruthi KP 21-19, 24-22.

Men's doubles second seeds Pranaav Jerry Chopra and Chirag Shetty beat Arun George and Sanyam Shukla 21-17, 21-18 to secure a place in the finals.